Wat
Nong Bua is about 40 km north of the city of Nan in the border country with
Laos. It is a Tai Lue temple that still functions as the center of the village.
When we visited a lot of older people spent time on the temple compound playing
games. We talked with an older man from the village and spent a long time at the
temple including the Tai Lue house in the back of the temple. Here they sell
hand woven fabric in Nam Lai design, which is a good way to support the local
people. Inside the Viharn Tai Lue tung banners hang from the wooden
structure and we were finally able to see the beautiful murals we had read about, though some of
them were in bad shape already. On our second trip up to Wat Nong Bua in
2007 we found a completely renovated temple, which we hardly recognized from the
outside. The floods of 2006 had submerged the temple in waist deep water levels.